Following the posts by Mcgyver & Mcona (sic) here on servos, could someone just give me a brief run down of the state of the art in computer processors for a machine to run Mach3.

I have run into problems with my ancient machine (650MHz Pentium 3) as it can't put pulses out fast enough to drive the servos at full speed. With 1800 pulses per motor revolution, the fastest I can get a single motor to spin is 1250rpm, hence a pulse rate of about 37.5kHz (running Mach in 60kHz mode). I can get the motor to spin faster in TurboCNC on a Pentium 2!

I'm aware that a lot of newer motherboards don't have parallel ports, so what is the fastest processor/motherboard combination available that still has a parallel port?

Ideally I'm looking for a list that goes 286, 386, 486, P, PII, PIII, PIV, etc. with a similar list for AMD chips.

I can buy a PIV 3GHz full system for 200GBP, or an Athlon 64 X2 5600 + motherboard (with parallel port) for the same money. Which would the panel suggest?

Or should I invest in a KFlop controller (roughly the same money) and not bother with the PC?